Icewind Dale IIReview

Share.

Black Isle delivers another polished and beautifully balanced RPG.

By Barry Brenesal

For those of you who didn't catch the original IWD, it's a Black Isle Studios' fantasy-based CRPG (computerized roleplaying game) that uses the 2D Infinity Engine, like the extremely popular Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment. IWD and its freshly hatched sibling differ from the other IE-based games in several respects. First, you create your entire party of six, rather than finding and adding NPCs to it. Second, both IWD games are relentlessly linear, moving from one major quest to the next. You can't pick and choose among a variety of major but nonessential quests. You can choose between different sides in a few secondary IWD2 conflicts, but not to the extent that the Fallout series or Arcanum allows you to pursue two completely separate tracks of good and evil to win.

Both these factors have turned off some players in the past. On the other hand, IWD provides an entertaining mix of abilities, spells and enemies. It isn't the most colorful or original RPG out there, but it remains one of the best balanced, with a series of escalating challenges that keep the tension crackling throughout the entire game. Icewind Dale 2 shares its predecessor's strengths, but makes a lot of changes to the underlying rules. The game is arguably better for the differences, as you'll discover.

IWD2's New Stuff, Part the First: Third Edition

Much of what's new in IWD2 derives from the game's adaptation of AD&D 3E (third edition) rules. These furnish a greater level of specificity in character design and development over the course of the entire game. Let's take a look at some of these important new features, and see how they affect gameplay.

Feats. These represent the biggest single modification to the original. The idea may have come from the very similar and popular perks system in the Fallout series. Like perks, feats are a tempting dessert tray of advantages that are wheeled out every few levels, and from which you can only choose one (or, very occasionally, two) for a given character at a time. Some feats involve increasing save rolls for Will, Reflexes, Fortitude or Magical Resistance. There are also feats that work from the opposite point of view, increasing a character's chances of over-riding saves. IWD2 incorporates a number of opportunities to see its feats work in spectacular fashion. I had to laugh out loud when my extremely agile Rogue was repeatedly attacked by a powerful tempest spirit in the Ice Temple, only to have every single one of those storm attacks fail due to his extraordinary feat-inspired reflexes.

Some feats are applied automatically: Sub-vocal Casting lets a character continue using spells after they've been silenced. (This presumably involves training at the Marcel Marceau School for Spellcasters.) Others feats are used only when players activate them, such as Expertise, which lets a character take a penalty of as much as ¿5 on attacks and apply it directly to Armor Class¿great for stalling monsters with your rogue, while your melee specialists whittle down the opposition. A few feats use other feats, skills and/or attributes as prerequisites, which encourages careful planning. For instance, Envenom Weapon requires at least one level in the Rogue profession and an Alchemy rating of 8 or higher. The latter depends upon possessing a few levels as a Bard, Wizard, or Sorcerer.

Only one profession, the Fighter, has the chance to really grab a large number of feats. (Fighters gain a bonus feat at the first level, and additional feats at every even-numbered level.) The rest of your party will be left making careful choices that determine what sort of role each plays during combat, conversation, or just drudging across the endless miles of white tundra. All this obviously tends to create a greater range of career-specific characters in any given game.

Magic-users familiar with 3E, take note: there are no meta-feats in IWD2. These are a sub-set of feats that enable characters to (for example) stick a higher level version of the 3rd level Fireball spell in a 5th level spell slot, with correspondingly greater damage. There's more to it than that, but meta-feats are honestly one area of the 3E rules where I'm not pleased with the results. Too much about them smells of openly aired and coldly calculated game mechanics. I frankly prefer BIS' other magical feats, which increase the strength of magical effects and decrease likely spell resistance while remaining resolutely within the playing world's frame-of-reference. Thus, instead of moving a lower level fire attack spell into a higher level slot, your Wizard in IWD2 is offered the chance to learn Spirit of Flame, a feat that provides a tiny amount of fire resistance and a significant boost to all fire damage.

Skills. Where feats are one-shot advantages, you develop skills by allocating points to them repeatedly as characters level. Several skills, such as Hide, Pick Pocket, Search, Open Lock, Disable Device and Move Silently, will be familiar to players of roguery from other RPGs, though these skills are now available to all characters. The Alchemy skill raises hopes that are soon dashed, since it doesn't grant a character the ability to make potions with ingredients: it simply lets a character recognize the nature of different unknown potions they encounter. Use Magic Device lets Bards and Rogues wield magical items such as wands; but I found that a 12th level Rogue couldn't even make a Magic Missile Wand work. Wilderness Lore is disappointing in implementation. Rather than a repeated analysis of your party's surroundings as you move through an area, it just supplies a paragraph for the entire loaded area describing what creatures are around, and the clues that lead to your conclusions. Bah.

Pickpocketing is still a mess, something it has been since BG1 first saw light of day. This particular skill continues to equate lifting a few coins with stealing gems or valuable magical rings, and relies upon success or abject failure that instantly turns a potential victim into your most relentless enemy. It's the kind of over-simplified gaming sub-system that has players constantly reloading, which in itself indicates something is wrong. Why couldn't pickpocketed merchants just scream a bit and raise their prices, or throw you out for a week, or call the local constabulary and hand you a fine?

I did like the introduction of social abilities like Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate. As these are applied automatically in conversation with NPCs, however, they're useful but dull. Which is true in general about 3E skills: they're important for some characters to have, but the choices lack the distinction and excitement associated with Feats. Fortunately, IWD2 makes their choice pretty much a no-brainer. As long as you give any thieving or spellcasting character at least an average intelligence score, you'll never lack for skill points to allocate properly, and the choices themselves are pretty obvious.